


The Nest

by bendthekneejon



Series: Moments: Spring and Bliss [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bedtime with Targlings, Cuddles, F/M, Family time, Fluff, Laughter, Peace, Spring, TOO MUCH LOVE, happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 01:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16506692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendthekneejon/pseuds/bendthekneejon
Summary: (previous pen name: jamessirius)Settled after the Great War, during spring.Jon and Dany are the King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Their children, Aemon and Arya, can’t sleep and knock on their door.An overdose of fluff. You’ve been warned.From the four POVs: Jon, Dany, Arya, and Aemon.Part 2 of the ‘Moments of Spring’ series. You don’t need to read the first part, though. Every one-shot is quite independent.





	The Nest

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you @theendlessrivers for betaing my stuff<3 u da best.

The day was finally over. Dany was sitting at her and Jon’s bed, cross-legged, as she pulled apart the strands of her braids, loosening them and leaving tousled curls behind. Jon took off his shirt, let out a loud yawn and put on his night clothes. He lay down next to her, allowing his body to sink into the mattress, and hugged her by the hips. She smiled and caressed his head until her hand bumped with his bun. She untied it and shook his mane free, yet tangled it in the process. He laughed and pressed a kiss to her thigh.

“I’m exhausted,” he exhaled.

“So am I.”

Meetings with lords and ladies, receiving the common people’s queries in the throne room…days were long, and ruling wasn’t easy. Her body felt heavy, her legs and shoulders felt weak; she desperately needed a good night’s sleep. But when every strand of hair was free and she could finally get into bed, a stampede of knocks at the door made her and Jon jerk. He looked up at her. No one in Westeros knocked on their door at night, especially not that way; no one but two people.

Dany got up. The knocks, as quick and intense as the gallops of a heard of horses, made her giggle to herself, and did not cease until she opened the door.

“Mummy!” Their two children, Aemon and Arya, five and three years old, stood at the door with Missandei behind them.

“Your Grace,” she said. “I’m sorry…they insisted _so much._ ”

Dany tried to tell her there was no problem, but the loud voices of the children did not let her speak.

“We’re scared of the dark!”

“We want to come in!”

“Let us in!”

“Please!”

Every time they came to their chambers, Dany and Jon always said the same phrases: _‘You’re coming over too often’, ‘There’s nothing in the dark, you don’t have to be afraid’, or ‘You need to learn to sleep on your own.’_ Yet she could not fool herself, she could not think of a better way to end the day than resting with her family: feeling a tiny hand on her neck, a little hum or a sigh, a kiss on the side of her forehead. It had been out of the reach of her wildest dreams to imagine how good these moments felt. She had always been an orphan, so she never had the slightest idea of how it felt to lay in bed with her parents. But even if they had lived, she was sure she would have not lain in bed with them. The Mad King did not sound like someone who lay in bed with his children. What about Rhaella, though? Rhaella had been good, Dany had heard, Rhaella had been lovely. She hoped so with all her heart. Every time she hugged Arya and Aemon, kissed their noses, or sang to them, she liked to think her mother would have done so to her as well.

“Just let us stay for a while, then we’ll leave,” Aemon looked up at her with a begging gaze.

“Please! Just read us a tale,” Arya said, tilting her head to look behind Dany and meeting Jon’s gaze, who loved to read tales to them.

Dany turned around to look at him, worried about how tired he was. He gave her a nod.

“Thank you Missandei,” she said. “We’ll take them back to their chambers later.”

The children ran past her towards the bed. Aemon jumped on it and Arya tried to climb up, but she was still too little, so Jon helped her up. Both children had silver-blond hair, which showed the Targaryen blood from both their parents, but Jon insisted on having a third child to see if they could be born with dark hair. Dany had laughed, telling him that giving birth hurt more than the worst pain he could ever imagine, and she did not know how many times she could do so. Arya, however, had curly hair, and such trivial detail filled Jon and Dany with joy, it felt like the perfect combination of them both.

Dany took from their desk a book about ancient history. Her favorite books were the ones with tales about princesses and knights, and the children loved them as well. But she and Jon had thought the children would like to learn about the ancient times, given how curious they were. She handed it to Jon, who was lying down with his head on the pillows. She lay down next to him. Even though it was a large bed and the four of them fit easily in it, they liked to squeeze together. Dany hugged Jon’s arm from one side while the children hugged him from the other. Arya held him by the neck, he could feel her tiny fingers against his skin there, and her legs were snuggled next to his shoulder. Aemon lay by that same side of Jon’s, resting his arm on his ribcage. Jon planted a kiss on Arya’s forehead before placing the book up against his abdomen and opening it up.

Jon knew his siblings—or cousins—used to lay in bed with Eddard and Catelyn sometimes. But he was never allowed there, no matter how bad he wanted to be part of the family. He stayed in his chambers, trying his best to get some sleep while fearing the dark on his own. Yet here he was, a number of years later, in bed with his own family.

When would the time come when the children would be too old to sleep with them? How could they know, if neither he nor Dany had lain in bed with their parents as children? They knew they could not go on for long like this, allowing them to come over so often, but how could they say no to them?

They had less time for coupling at night, though. Some nights, after the children fell asleep, they carried them back to their chambers and finally had some time for themselves. But some nights the children stayed over, and Jon and Dany chose to be with them over coupling most times, no matter how much they enjoyed the second one.

They were seen as the bravest, most fearless people in Westeros, yet this was their weakness. It was almost impossible to reject the chance to have a moment the four of them alone, cuddling, hugging, laughing together, not stressing over the children’s mischiefs or their behavior at supper.  So, even though he was exhausted, he would make an effort to be with them for a while.

“We don’t have much time tonight. We’ll have a long day on the morrow. We will receive over a hundred people in the Throne Room,” Jon told them.

“I don’t understand,” Aemon said. “Why do so many people grumble to you in the Throne Room?”

Dany chuckled. “They don’t grumble, Aemon. There are certain things they lack or need, or certain conflicts they have with neighboring cities. There is _always_ something that people don’t agree in.”

“Why?”

“Because…” she sighed, trying to put into words something so complicated. “It is not possible for there not to be conflict in the kingdoms, even if it’s a tiny bit of it.” She used to think, foolishly, that after the war, every person in Westeros would live in peace. But even in spring, there would always be something out there in which some would not agree, whether it was about managing natural resources, inheriting land, or collecting taxes. “You see, everyone has their own personal wishes, but not everyone can have everything they want. For instance, let's say there are two lemon cakes at the table, would you like to eat both of them?”

“Yes.”

“But maybe Arya _also_ wants to eat both of them.”

Arya nodded.

“So either only _one_ of you will get what you want, or both of you will have to sacrifice a tiny bit of your wish, _one_ lemon cake, so both of you can enjoy at least one part of your wish. Yet not everyone is willing to let go of their wishes.”

“Everyone wants two lemon cakes?” Arya asked.

Both Jon and Dany laughed.

“No, love,” Jon said. “But everyone wishes for something that others also want: land, money, food…” _power,_ he thought, but he was still too young to understand the concept. “We all have similar needs, and there is only a limited amount of these things we need, so conflicts will always arise. People come to us to seek help. Or…to grumble, sometimes, too.”

Little by little, they tried to teach their children what they could about ruling. Aemon would be king after them, as he was the eldest. But what if Arya was more fit to rule when they grew up? They were still too little to know, but when their time came, they would rather have the most capable ruler wear the crown than the eldest.

“Arya!” Aemon suddenly frowned, pushing her foot away while she laughed. “Don’t put your feet on my face!”

“Children, behave,” said Dany. For now, the conflicts they had to take care of were their children’s.

“Her feet smell!” Aemon replied.

“Yours too,” said Arya.

“Well, you got that from your father,” Dany laughed.

Jon’s jaw dropped. “Your feet _also_ smell!”

Their children let out loud, high-pitched laughs.

“When your father came back from a battle and took off his boots...by the Gods! I could not bear it!” Dany laughed.

Aemon shut his eyes as he kept on laughing. When he was alone, in the dark, in his bed, he was usually alert, looking around, making sure there were no monsters about to pop out from behind a bureau or from under his bed. His parents had told him repeatedly nothing would happen to him, that he had to learn to be brave, but when it was time to be alone, what a challenge that was! In his parents’ bed, though, all his fears ran away. No dangerous monster could be around. Nothing could creep from beneath the bed nor storm into the chambers from the window. But if it did, his father was one of the best fighters in Westeros, and his mother was fearless, the bravest woman in the kingdoms. No monster could be foolish enough to attack them with his father and mother around.

Out of their chambers, however, around the castle, sometimes his parents upset him. Sometimes they called him out when they did not like what he did, like running out of his lessons with the maester to go out and play, or stealing cakes from the kitchen and taking them to his chambers. Sometimes he argued with Arya while they played with their swords, she was too little and it annoyed him that she did not play well. But when he got angry at her, his parents got angry at him, saying that he should be more understanding for being the eldest. It seemed so unfair! She ruined the game and they got angry at _him_?

But in their bed, he only thought about their snuggles or the stories they told. He liked burying his fingers in his mother’s long hair, it felt funny between his palms; he liked hugging his father’s chest, feeling his long breaths under his arm. He liked it when his mother’s fingertips scratched his arm so softly it was ticklish. In their bed, everything was forgiven, every argument dwindled away easily.

Jon cleared his throat and started reading: “ _There are none who can say with certain knowledge_ when _the world began, yet this has not stopped many maesters and learned men from seeking the answer_.” He brushed his finger below the words for Aemon to watch how they sounded, as he was starting to learn how to read. “ _Is it forty thousand years old, as some hold, or perhaps a number as large as five hundred thousand—or even more?”_

“How many years are five hundred thousand years?” Arya asked.

Jon hummed, thinking. How could he explain something that seemed so simple?

“Many,” Dany replied.

“Lots,” Jon agreed. “More than you could possibly count!”

Arya was restlessly curious. She had a question for everything she did not fully understand. Whenever Jon or Dany told her to do something—to keep quiet at the table, to chew with her mouth closed, to not run in the Throne room—she would not do so without asking why and getting an answer.

Jon continued. “ _It is not written in any book that we know, for in the first age of the world, the Dawn Age, men were not lettered_.”

“What does that mean?” Arya asked.

“It means they did not know how to read nor write,” Dany told her. “So, they could not write in books like this one how the world was back then. That is why we cannot know much about it.”

“ _What little is known to us of those days_ ,” Jon went on, “ _is contained in the oldest of texts: the tales written down by the Andals, by the Valyrians, and by the Ghiscari. Yet however ancient those lettered races, they were not even children during the Dawn Age_.”

Arya listened to his father’s deep voice, either staring at the book and the writings she did not understand, or closing her eyes and allowing his voice to be all she perceived. The nightly journeys along the hallways with Aemon to their parents’ door while Missandei chased them were completely worth it when they were all together like this. She loved to place a hand on her mother or father’s neck, they were always warm; she liked caressing her father’s beard, black and thick under her soft palms—it seemed weird to her that he had hair on his face but her mother did not—; she loved to play with the long hairs in his arms too, pulling them until he squeaked and she laughed out loud; and his chest, wide and hard, was a better bed than the bed itself: she could feel the beat of his heart against her, and how it rose and fell with her on top as he breathed. Her mother always kissed her belly and made funny noises with her mouth against it, which made her squirm in laughter. She loved seeing her mother laugh. She had the most beautiful smile she had seen in her life! It made her smile back right away, without her even noticing so.

Some nights, she fell asleep in their bed and when she woke up the next morning, she was in her chambers. Some nights, she heard her parents’ voice asking her and Aemon if they were awake. She pretended she wasn’t and they carried her back to her chambers instead of making her walk. She wondered if Aemon also pretended in those moments, or if he was really asleep. And sometimes, when she was lucky, they let her and Aemon spend the _entire_ night with them!

“ _What can most accurately be told about the Dawn Age?_ ” Jon read. “ _The eastern lands were awash with many peoples—uncivilized, but numerous. But on Westeros, from the Lands of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea, only two peoples existed: the children of the forest and the race of creatures known as the giants…”_ Jon gasped, interrupting himself, “I’ve seen giants!”

“You have?” Aemon asked.

“You _have_?” Dany asked.

“I have!” he grinned.

Dany and he had told one another about almost all their adventures, everything that had happened in their lives before they met, but theirs had truthfully been eventful lives! Years and years passed, and there was still so much to share!

“I saw _hundreds_ of them beyond the Wall! Hundreds!”

“How did you see them?” asked Dany.

“They fought for the man who used to be the King-Beyond-The-Wall, Mance Rayder. And a friend of mine, Tormund, says he was raised by a giantess as a child!”

“Tormund?” Dany replied. “Really?”

“How are they?” Aemon asked.

“They are… _huge_! And they do not speak the Common Tongue. They speak the _Old_ Tongue. Although I did meet one who was learning it!”

“You met one?” Dany asked.

“Yes! He…he had a funny name!” Jon laughed, shutting his eyes at the memory. “Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun. But we only called him ‘ _Wun Wun’_.”

The four of them laughed out loud.

He was talking between laughs and grins, in a childlike tone. The first smiles of him Dany had seen had lasted only a few seconds, they were shy, quick, his lips rushed back down to their previous position. It made her wonder if he had not smiled many times before. It also made her wonder if he had had the same impression of her smiles when they popped into her face...did they also give away their newness?

“Father,” Aemon said. “Can we meet a giant some time?”

“Oh, my boy, they’re in the Lands of Always Winter. It’s so far away! And it is so cold! You’ve never been in such temperatures before. And, sadly, there aren’t many of them left.”

“Please, let’s meet them some time…” Arya raised her head to look at both her parents.

Dany shook her head. “It’s too cold up there, Arya.”

“Please?”

Arya crawled over Jon’s chest to Dany’s, and pressed her cheeks with both hands. Dany giggled, holding Arya’s tiny arm.

“Maybe, when you grow up.”

The children could not be in such freezing temperatures yet. They had to be older and stronger for a journey like that one. Dany always made sure they were safe and wouldn’t fall sick. She had a desperate wish of them living a life without suffering, which she knew was impossible, but at least not a bit as harsh as hers and Jon’s had been. Aemon had been conceived in the midst of a war, and he and spring were twins, both born at the end of winter. She hoped that was a good sign. She wanted nothing but good in the lives of her children, it was everything she needed to be happy. She always wondered how their future would be. How would they be when they grew up? Which fears would they have? Who would they fall in love with? Would they be fighters? She hoped not! She wanted them to be as far away from danger as possible. And besides their duty of ruling, would they like to spend their time studying history, medicine, numbers? Would they be painters, or perhaps musicians like their grandfather? Would they be caring and kind? She would make sure they would.

Jon kept on reading, but the children would not drop the subject of traveling north to meet giants.

“But how cold can it be?” Aemon asked.

“You can put on all the furs in the world, and you will still be cold. Wherever you look, it’s all white, like a loooong blanket. There is so much snow you can not even walk, it even reaches up to your waist.”

“I want to see snow sometime!” Aemon said.

“Some time, love,” Dany said. “Not for now.”

“When, then?” Arya asked.

Jon extended his large, calloused hand against hers, so tiny and new. He and Dany had been escaping winter for so long, and now their children wanted to go back to the _only_ place where winter still existed?

“When your hand is the size of your mother’s,” he said softly.

Arya quickly placed her hand against Dany’s and stared at the difference. She sighed. “It will take me five thousand years.”

Dany’s jaw dropped. “I am _not_ five thousand years old!”

The four of them laughed again. Aemon insisted on wanting to go on an adventure, like the ones in the tales, or the ones Jon and Dany had been in, which many times seemed more fascinating than the ones in books: _“And there are pyramids as tall as mountains, but built by men!”,_ _“The Wall was so_ _tall_ , _if you stood at its feet and looked up, you couldn't see where it ended!”_

Aemon wondered how much of the world did his parents know. How many bad men and evil creatures had they fought? They always had new stories about adventures in different corners of the world. Mother even had stories about Essos, a land so far away it took months to get there by ship! He had even heard rumors around the castle of them fighting dead people… _dead_ people! Who walked and fought. It had scared him to the bone that night, so he had to run to their chambers to ask them if it was true that the dead could walk and harm the living. _Once they could_ , his father said, _not anymore_. He promised.

He couldn’t help but wonder if they had also been scared of the dark when they were children. His mother grew up parentless, so, to whom did she go to when she was scared? But his parents did not fear _anything,_ did they? They were the bravest people in the world.  _‘But, a man can only be brave when he’s afraid,’_ his father had told him, which, in turn, his uncle had told him.

“Try to get some sleep,” mother’s voice said when all their voices started dozing off. His father’s hand scratched his head softly and he snuggled closer to him. He did not want to sleep just yet. He did not like it when he opened his eyes and found himself in the daylight. However, the warmth and the stillness made it difficult for him to keep his eyelids open for long.

Arya curled her body under the furs, taking in the scent of mother and father, deeply ingrained in their pillows and sheets. Mother and father’s nest was a den, a haven, the safest place in Planetos. It was the cave where lost men ran into in the tales to hide from evil creatures. It cast a spell on Aemon and Arya, of fearlessness and, consequently, of slumber. 

 _‘I love you,’_ mother and father always told them, but mostly when they were here at night, in their chambers. It was their own world, where no one else even knocked on the door: not the maesters, not the lords and ladies, not even the cooks or servants or the Royal Guard.

“Arya? Aemon?” Dany asked, but got no answer.

Both Jon and Dany were exhauated and the children looked so peaceful while sleeping that they did not want to risk waking them up, so they did not move them.

“I’m afraid Arya will fall off the bed,” said Dany quietly. It had already happened a few times. So she got up and put some cushions on the floor next to her.

Even if Jon loved his privacy with Dany, these moments were sacred. They made him realize that there was finally peace: A tiny voice saying ‘father’, a tiny leg over his belly, hands from different sizes intertwined… This was their true spring. Jon closed his eyes and only heard their four breathings, each in a different rhythm and duration. His was the deepest and longest one, then it was Dany’s, then Aemon’s, and then Arya’s. The ghost of their laughs seemed to hang in the air: not only the children’s laughs, but Dany’s as well, which he had heard so little before the war ended. Jon tried to cherish this moment as much as he could. He did not even want to fall asleep, he did not want it to end. He knew time would go by and their children would not be children for long. He was lost in the moment, flowing through every second as if swimming in clear water, hoping with all his heart that his wife and children could be enjoying it as much as him.

To think that he grew up believing he could never wed anyone, much less father children! Yet here was Dany, whose love for him was shown from the tiniest details, from fixing his hair every morning to having risked her life for him; and here were Aemon and Arya, the result of the strength of their love.

Dany put a hand on his shoulder, “Sleep well.”

“You too.”

She pressed a kiss on his cheek that came out louder than she had planned it to be, and its funny sound evoked a laugh…but not from Jon's lips nor hers. Such tiny laugh was impossible to mistake.

“Arya!” Dany whispered loudly, careful not to wake Aemon up… _if_ he was asleep.

Arya tried to hold back a grin, but it was impossible. Her parents had caught her in the act. Her secret was out.

Yet nobody moved. They did not tell her to return to her chambers. The four of them were captivated, drawn by the bed: the most private place of the most known family in the Seven Kingdoms. A warm bed. Silence. No danger around. The most magical place in a world of magic, where they had seen dragons, living dead, warging, and resurrections.

The morrow seemed irrelevant, far away. Now, it was all about cherishing these last seconds awake, before their eyelids got so heavy that they wouldn’t open up again until the following morning.

**Author's Note:**

> **Hi everyone! I haven't watched Season 8 from GOT so please don't write anything about the content in the comments! Thank you :)**
> 
> * * *
> 
> I know. This is sort of a recycled situation from another fic of mine, but laying in bed with your parents is for some reason one of the most magical places to be in as a child, and as Jon and Dany haven’t experienced it as children, I had to make sure they would as parents. This is the first time I’ve written anything from a child’s pov, I hope it seemed sort of credible. The kids are still in the age where they see mom and dad as superheroes, and, let’s be honest, they truly are superheroes.  
> PS. The book they were reading is AWOIAF!  
> PSS. I know it sort of seemed like Dany is explaining communism to the kids, but she isn't lol, just the way in which our nature of always wanting more creates conflict.  
> PSSS. Thanks to Owl City for teaching me the verb “doze off” in Vanilla Twilight. Who would’ve thought I would be using it ten years later in a fanfic.


End file.
